Yeah, similar case here. Me and my mate few years back, we never even considered giving anime a try (probably would have not laugh at it, but it was too foreign/weird for us). We both watched a lot of western series, but our most favorite ones were usually quite old (e.g. ST:TOS, ST:TNG, Red Dwarf, Farscape, Star Gate). Nowadays we watch anime daily and very rarely anything from the west (for me probably just Orville which is currently the closest thing to the spirit of star trek). Personally, I consider most sequels/reboots (ST, SW, Doctor Who) as dead to me, they just changed so much, became racists, sexist, preachy, lore-breaking for no reason, with bland and characters and uninspired predictable story, simply boring. Effects alone cannot carry a movie/series if everything else is garbage.

Slightly off topic question - does anyone know about some site with "wokeness" meter or some other kind of such rating for movies/series/games? I don't watch many movies (a few per year, usually those which are lambasted by "critics" and praised by fans), but in games it's slowly getting worse and it looks like anime is the next target for the censorious crazies.